I’ve done nothing but work the past week. I did take some respite early in the weekend and played pool with a friend. It’s been forever since I played. Like Delta Lion’s Club home playing with some of the LEOs in the upstairs room. Yeah, those of you who know me & read this will know how long ago that is.

I’ve also been challenged that I’m not sharing too much information about myself, hmmm. Makes me wonder when one is getting to know someone else, does anyone else tend to just sit back & take all they can in about the other person, therefore not sharing all that much about their own lives? How do you share your life story without making it boring & droll & interesting enough so the person doesn’t think you’re a total bore?

This has now become work too, how to be the best person you can for yourself & the person you’re getting to know. Can’t just rest on your laurels so to speak, you have to make your laurels work for you. Off now to work, which kind of work I’ll leave it to your imaginations.

Share this:

Like this:

Some thing new has been happening the last 2 months. Something’s made me very happy, not sure I want to share all that much, but every time I think about it, I get all girly happy again. I cling to this idea, those thoughts & sweet memories when work gets a little crazy. I just close my door to my classroom when I have a free 5-10 minutes & reminisce about that something.

Work has been quite crazy this last month; with meetings, conferences, data, report cards, comments, etc stress seeps in where it can. Hence those stolen moments alone in a quiet class when the kids are at lunch or in Specials.

I love my job. I love my students this year. True, I missed my kiddos from last year, but I am growing more & more fond of my kids and their quirks. One of my current students moved this week, it was also her birthday, I miss her already & her sweet nature with her classmates, she was a doll.

One of my former students moved also, about 2 weeks ago 😦 His mom worked at our campus for the past 2-3 yrs. She’s one of those great parents, that just get it, because she was around the teachers & kids all day long. Their last few days at school were tough. The second to last day I saw my former student out at parent pick-up, which reminded me it was getting closer. I started to tear up but was able to hold it back.

The next day however, different story. They weren’t out at parent pick-up, she was finalizing last minute things in the front office. The minute my student (they’ll always be mine) hugged me goodbye I lost it. Lost it even more when she hugged me & said “Thank you for teaching my kid.” (So crying right now too) It’s those kids & moments like this that make the crazy day-in & day-out random BS endurable.

Those kiddos are having to start over at new schools, make new friends, learning the ropes in their new towns. I’m blessed to have been a part of their young lives & will use what I learned while they were mine with all my kids, because every day is a new beginning, easy or not 🙂

Share this:

Like this:

I’ve been reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin lately. I gotta tell ya it seems like just what I needed in my life right now.

A few months ago I had someone in my life that wasn’t very happy with their situation. Unfortunately for me I tend to absorb all emotions around me whether they’re happy, sad, anger, excited, etc. It was to the point where I couldn’t seem to shake those emotions, I was a wreck earlier this summer. Other things besides having those emotions in close proximity factored into my mental state, say oh my current relationship status i.e. null/void/nil/nada but hey what can ya do?

I began reading The Happiness Project before I began talking with someone, professional, to guide me through getting past all those emotions I had absorbed & were letting fester, ick! It’s funny because all my assignments thus far have mirrored things in the book.

Well I’ve been doing research & came across this blog post by Chic Vegan. A lot of the things she lists are all things that were in my head, I just hadn’t been able to verbalize them or put them down on paper, so to speak. Obviously I’m going to be referring to this list as I create my own Happiness Project.

Another school year is approaching us yet again. With the popularity & resourcefulness of Pinterest subscribers I’ve been inundated with tons of ideas for my classroom this year. I can’t wait to see their faces when they come into our “Super” classroom on Meet the Teacher night & the First Day, yay!!

I’ve also got a few other responsibilities on my plate this year:

I was asked to participate in a Balanced Literacy Cadre for our campus for my grade level. I learned so much in the training with Mrs. Melissa Leach. She’s on facebook, pinterest & Blogger. Earlier in the summer me a few other teachers from my campus took her Writer’s Workshop class & it was awesome. So I’m excited to get into the nitty gritty of this balanced literacy practice.

I was also asked to mentor a new staff member. Granted she teaches music, but I love music so I see this as a good thing for me to learn something new as well as helping her have a great year!! I’m looking forward to it.

I’m also excited about some of our new admin team & the new direction they are taking our campus. It’s going to be an exciting year.

In honor of all these creative & professional juices flowing I decided to create a blog just for that. Go check it out here: Tales From A 2nd Grade Classroom. I’m going to post school related items there, unless it’s just too awesome then I’ll bring it over.

I’m also going to begin getting back into my Medifast routine. Starting during the summer when I had ALL DAY to think about what I couldn’t eat was awful. I cheated, a lot. So I’ve got renewed sense of getting this done & hopefully I’ll be able to stick to it this time around, whew!

Lotsa new beginnings this year, as it seems every year. Learning new things, adapting to new routines, admin, diet, new kids, etc. Can’t Wait!

Like this:

Six years ago I went back for my 10 year High School Reunion. It was very much smaller than I expected. My house I grew up in got smaller as I would go back during college. But this was a shock.

It was the 2nd event of our reunion a crawfish boil in the cafeteria, which also shrunk in size. I was always amazed and daunted when walking those halls those 20 some odd years ago. How big it seemed with it's 3 storeys of classrooms & labs, auditorium, gymnasium, atriums, balconeys.

There we were about maybe 3/4 of our class came back for the weekend's festivities. We filed into the cafeteria & filled our plates. After some good eating & catching up my best friend Shannon & I decided to take the "Reunion Tour" through our old little hangouts through the school.

It was then I realized how much smaller everything seemed. The lockers weren't as high, but I was about the same height as I was in HS. The bathrooms were smaller too, that was crazy. The hallways & stairways seemingly closed in on us.

What's worse is that recently, my alma mater, Benjamin Franklin wasn't listed in the US News & World Report List of the top schools in the US. Previously we weren't even on the main list but listed as an asterik on another side list for consistently producing high achieving national merit scholars, etc. It always showed up every year so USNWR had to create another list for it & schools that are similar.

Not only has the building shrunk but so has our status as an elite high school coming from the depths of what many outsiders call hell, New Orleans, but most who still love it call home.

It's true you can never really go home again………

Share this:

Like this:

I'm waxing nostalgic about radio. I remember many nights patiently waiting for my favorite songs to come on so I could record them on my tape recorder which was poised ever so steadily next to the speaker of the small radio mind you.

In college I had my own car that I listened to the radio incessantly. I listened so much that one day I was driving to class & Faith Hill's Breathe came on the popular country station, by that time it had played itself out, too much for me. I changed the station, adult contemporary format, & low & behold it was playing on the next station too. I changed the station close to 5 more times, 5 different radio stations, in Baton Rouge there were 3 major country stations, 3 Top 40 stations plus that adult contemporary one. Each & every one was playing that dang song!

I was so glad when I got my next car that had a CD player in it finally that I could listen to what I wanted. Before I was the mercy of tapes that were obviously on the way out.

My next car had satellite radio for a year. I lurved my Sirius radio, no commercials. When I let the subscription lapse & had to go back to regular radio I couldn't believe how much commercials had become a part of programming, it had truly gotten worse than before.

Therefore I long for the days when I propped my tape recorder up against my stereo speakers to record the brand new NKOTB single, lol. It was the right stuff!

Share this:

Like this:

It's hard to choose just one memory. I had so many growing up in the house on Dupre St. It was your typical New Orleans Shotgun house. When my grandparents bought the house they made certain renovations to make it inhabitable since my parents & siblings were going to be living with them.

They blocked off their front room & cut a doorway through the wall giving my parents another bedroom so that my sister didn't have to share her room with the boys. They also installed closets. You may think, what a house without closets, well back in the day taxes were charged based on how many rooms a house had & closets were considered rooms. Later on they also added onto the back of the house & gave each side an extended kitchen/dining room & shed.

Since it's the end of Mardi Gras time it's brought back a lot of memories from the times we had open house. Mom would cook, usually it was hot tamales, so yummy!!!

Also, every Saturday night my parents had friends come over & they'd play cards til 12-1 at night. They'd let us hang around for a little bit, but then they'd run us out & we'd have to either retire to our rooms or watch tv in the living room.

Those nights when I'd have sleepovers & the next morning my friends & I would play in the backyard.

When I went home for a family function a couple years ago we drove past & that's when I took this picture. It was right around the time Miranda Lambert's song "The House That Built Me" had just come out. I was jonesing to see the house again. We didn't get to go in, but it was enough.

Share this:

Like this:

There’s something to be said for being home. Don’t get me wrong I like living in Texas, but coming home & getting the family boost that only a mom, a sister & brothers can provide. I’m looking forward to spending the day with my brother & his girlfriend up in Natchitoches for the Louisiana Folklife Festival at NSU. I’m also looking forward to seeing a few of the historic places where the original Steel Magnolias was filmed. More family arrives in Marksville tonight, they’ll be coming to the Vince Gill concert tomorrow night too, yay! I’ll post pictures through my tumblr & twitter accounts, so be sure to check the links or follow me over there on the right 🙂